Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The latest Rhett and Link video, with help from Canadian animator Billy Reid.

And there's a twist at the end about where the alien is from that I couldn't stop laughing about. :D (No offense to anyone who lives there, I just found it funny.) :)

They really took this and made fun of the alien-searching people....and I'm not sure if that's the whole point of the show this aired on (Brink...on the Science Channel, I believe), or whether the whole rest of the show was serious and then they made fun of it. :)

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Several of my blogging friends have done this quiz, and since it's a little variety from the usual questions on a blog quiz, I thought I'd do it too. :)

1. What two qualities do you want most in your future husband (besides being a Christian)? Well, of course I want someone who loves the Lord and is striving to serve Him, and can be an encouragement to me in those areas as well. (Just to add to the "Christian" part.) And besides that...hmm...compassion and responsibility. Among others, but I guess I'd put those first.

2. Is there a fictional character you see as a model for your future husband? Well, I liked Lizzie's answer pretty well! :) Mr. Knightley and Mr. Tilney (both from Jane Austen novels). There are probably others, but those are the two I always think of first.

3. Where do you want your wedding? In a pretty church/chapel.

4. What are your views on courtship? That's a very open question! My views on courtship? Well...first of all, I think "courtship" has unfortunately got some bad connotations to it, in my opinion, so I'm kind of unsure about using that term. I think it's the mindset and motive, not what you call it that matters. You can call it dating and it still be fine. Basically, it's getting to know someone, with the intention or at least serious possibility of marrying them if it works out, not just to have fun, and have a girlfriend or boyfriend and "be in love" for a while, until you decide you're tired of them.

5. Do you have a purity ring/locket? No, I don't. And if you have one, that's fine for you, but personally, I'm afraid I don't see the point. It's a heart issue, and a decision you've made, and a ring is going to do nothing if you decide to go against that decision. I guess it's supposed to be a reminder, but once again, (and this is just my opinion, I don't mean to offend anyone) if that's all that's stopping you, there are bigger problems. And the lockets, well, my dad and I are not the sort to do the whole "I'm practically 'married' to Daddy until he finds a proper young man worthy of me! And Daddy is just a perfect saint, and he'll keep those scary boys away from me" thing. (Note, I'm not personally acquainted with anyone who acts like that, but they're out there. :) If you have a locket, but you and your dad aren't treating it that way, then that's cool, it's just not my thing.) However, I do think my dad is my protector and authority until I'm married, and I trust him to watch out for me, and not let me marry some cad, because I'm too smitten to see clearly. :)

6. Do you have or want a hope chest? I have stuff stored in boxes...so not exactly a hope chest, but I am collecting things.

7. Will you wear a veil at your wedding? I don't know...I'm thinking probably not.

8. What kind of wedding dress do you want? Either the one I have, or something fairly simple, probably with short sleeves. No train...too inconvenient.

9. What color bridesmaid dresses do you want? Something that looks nice on all of them hopefully, for their sakes! :D I'm thinking burgundy (I think most people can wear burgundy...), or maybe black. I do like black a lot...

10. What flowers do you want in your bouquet? Oh wow...I'm not sure. Lilies maybe. It kind of depends on what colors I pick.

11. What do you want to name one of your daughters? I don't know.

12. What do you want to name one of your sons? Don't know that either.

13. How many kids do you want? However many I have. I'm thinking 5-8 would probably be the limit on how many I could handle! :P I'm not that energetic of a person. Something like that.

14. What music do you want to play at your wedding? Well, two of my favorite pieces of classical music are Pachelbel's Canon in D, and Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring both a little typical perhaps, but that's what came to mind first. Possibly some hymns, or some Celtic music or something. I don't really know for sure.

15. Are you a hopeless romantic? Hmm, that depends on how you define "hopeless romantic". I'm practical, in the long run, but I also adore love stories that turn out well, and I want to be married...but I do know it's not always going to be easy. So, I dunno....does that equal hopeless romantic??

I liked this article on Boundless...in fact, I thought it was kind of funny. :) Basically it's about how there are so many suggestions about relationships, and how you have to do it this way or it won't work, and then someone else says "no, do this, or it won't work", and how it makes it all so overly complicated, and there end up being too many "rules". :D Avoiding Relationship Paralysis"Spend time in the right places. Church is usually good. That seedy nightclub right next to the twice-raided meth lab? Usually bad." Oh really?...shoot. ;)

"Finally, if you actually manage to meet someone you find appealing, interesting and spiritually compatible -- at least as far as you can tell without instituting an FBI-style background check..." :D It was a refreshing article, I must say.

Friday, August 21, 2009

So...as you might have guessed by the title of the post (if you were aware of the movie) Mom and I went to see the movie "Julie & Julia".

It is a combination of the story of Julia Child, when she lived in France and decided to go to cooking school, etc., etc. and the story of Julie Powell who 50-some years later decided to cook her way through Julia Child's cookbook and blog about the process. (To kind of sum it all up anyway.)

I'll start by saying that it is a PG-13 movie, and while there's some passionate kissing, and...how shall I put it...implications of other things, it's nothing terrible. :) And hey, they're married at least. (Basically since it's nothing inappropriate and it shows how much in love they are, I think it helped the story, or at least pushed it into the romantic comedy genre well.) There is the occasional bad word too, so if either of those things will offend you, then maybe you shouldn't watch it.

Okay...disclaimers aside, how was the movie? Very good! (If you haven't seen the movie, this may include some spoilers.)I don't think I would consider if very much of a biographical sort of movie merely about Julia Child's cooking, since it brought in so much about her relationship with her husband and how supportive he was of her, etc., and same with the Julie Powell portion of the story.

I must say I liked the Julia Child part better though. The part about Julie Powell was rather stereotypical, though still good, and they had a cute little orange cat. (And I can't seem to find a picture of the cat! Oh well...it looked like an orange cat...medium-sized.) That helped redeem that part. If there were no cat, or it had been a dog, I'm not sure I would have been able to stand it as well. :) The cat added a human touch to something that was a little too screen written. Basically, I didn't feel much sympathy for Amy Adams' rather feminist character. Feminist through cooking even (cooking to get recognition through her blog). A review I saw said this:

"Amy Adams made the best of a a clunkily written part with scenes set in 2002-03 New York that don’t seem to represent exchanges that could occur between actual human beings, saved those living in the imaginary realm of feminist writers. None of the men had lives or personalities outside of their relationship to the leading women. We didn’t even know that Powell’s husband Eric had a job until he walked out on her (for reasons that just didn’t seem believable.) In short, the tension between Julie and Eric seemed contrived. And their reconciliation fake."

"He [Eric] doesn't like being called a saint, the poor thing," says another review. :D

Yes, definitely there were things that didn't seem realistic at all about Julie and Eric though my general impression was that the movie was adorable. Let me put it this way, Julia Child was adorable in a way I could empathize with, Julie in a simply movie-ish way. Actually I found Julie rather annoying in a few spots.

On the other hand, I feel like there was a lot of work put into little details to make Julia and Paul's relationship and story and characters believable. And Meryl Streep is a very good actress as well.

First all the things thrown in about her height and how she and her sister are so TALL and Julia's taller than her husband. And they plan to introduce her sister to a man who's actually taller than her and she ends up falling for a much shorter man, and he for her with no difficulty, despite their planning. :) It amused me because I was thinking "Goodness, how tall was Julia Child?! She and her sister can't have been that tremendously tall..."Turns out she was 6'2"! That definitely is tall...I tend to think I'm tall, but that's 7.5 inches more height than I have!

And then there is one scene where Paul mentions politics to sort of bait his father-in-law, and then when Julia takes it seriously and gets ready to start arguing with her father too, her husband pulls her out onto the dance floor shushing her kindly, while she laughs about how she never knows when to be quiet. I thought that was cute. :)

Anyway, I can't recap the whole movie, but Mom and I enjoyed it and laughed a lot. Meanwhile, Dad stayed home with Colin and played Candyland. :/ Poor Dad. I don't know if he would have liked the movie or not, though. He probably would have though. If you can stand to watch a Jane Austen movie you could watch this. :D

Here's the trailer for it, although I realized that I saw things in the trailer that apparently didn't make the final cut for the movie!:

Monday, August 17, 2009

My friend Amanda arranged an exchange of art postcards every month. So each month, you have a friend you're assigned to make a postcard for and you send it to them on the first of the month, and another friend sends you one.

This was the first month, and this is the one I sent to Amanda:

This is going to be a bit tough for me, because I don't have a lot of art skills when it comes to stuff like this, but I'm looking forward to trying something each month and *hopefully!* improving. :/

This was just pencil and I titled it "In Honor Of" because it's her initials. Titling? Also something I'm not real great at. :p I have no idea what I'm going to title the next one I have in mind.

Oh, and I got postcard stamps at the post office a couple weeks ago....they have polar bears on them, how cute! Seems like a good reason to send postcards. :D

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Oof...I've had enough talking to people for one day. Or being talked to. I don't know, I don't mind talking some, and I usually prefer people to talk to me, but I'm worn out. Hmm....that sounded terribly unsocial, but I just hit a point where I have nothing left to say, especially if I'm getting tired. (If I'm at a sleepover and stay up past that point, it eventually backfires and I won't shut up though.) :)

Anyway, we had a church lunch this afternoon and then I stayed over there with my friends and watched the movie Fireproof. Speaking of which, if you've seen it you should watch this (I don't think it would be real funny if you haven't already seen the movie though).

I liked the movie a lot. Some of the acting was a little cheesy, and the plot a bit predictable, but it was pretty good. My dad thought it was a little unrealistic how once the guy was saved immediately everything fell into place perfectly. (They went and saw it when it was in theaters.) So...low budget, but all in all a good story. And a great reminder how apart from love for Christ, and remembering the love He shows to us, it's hard to love another person well. (To paraphrase.)

I was over at the pastors house (my friends are the two oldest girls) and I was amused by how the next two youngest kids kept looking over at me during the movie to see how I was reacting to it. :D It also dawned on me that when I'm dating/courting/whatever you want to call it (how about just "seeing"...) when I'm seeing some guy, the little kids are going to be watching me...and him...and actually I'm not sure which of us will "deserve" more watching. :D Depends on the guy I guess, whether they decide he's right for me or not. lol Ah well...if they happen to not like him for some reason but I and my family do....they'll just have to deal. ;) And since I'm the oldest girl in the church, I might be a bit of a trailblazer, adding to the scrutiny by the young ones. Oh goody. :p Oh my...I find this terribly amusing. Heeheehee. :D

In other news, I've been doing a little bit of sewing lately. I was working on a skirt probably about a month ago now and got so frustrated with it that it's just been sitting on my desk since then. I pulled it out the other day though and decided I was just going to have to disregard the pattern and figure out a way to make it work. From something, either cutting, or sewing it wrong, or who knows what, it wasn't going to work right to put the zipper in it. (I hate zippers anyway! Installing them, I mean.) So I decided I would make a bunch of buttonholes and and a ribbon so it could just lace up the side. So....working on buttonholes last night...tedious. Twelve buttonholes on each side, only about a half inch long. Gah! Then when I was cutting them open, first of all, the seam ripper slipped and I cut about two inches up the side. :/ So I had to zigzag stitch the poor skirt back together (which worked, thankfully), and then while trying to poke through one of the buttonholes, the point on my seam ripper snapped off. Fortunately Mom has one too, so I was able to use hers to poke through and then the blade part on mine to do the actual cutting.

And this morning I found that I had a metal splinter in my finger from that! Yikes.

In other sewing, I had a t-shirt my grandma gave me that was too big, so I sewed it up the sides to make it fit....and then I discovered that my toenails matched it. :)

And then finally, my friend asked me to sew her stripes onto her air force (I'm not sure if that should be capitalized?) uniform for her before she left. She had one jacket that had them in completely different spots on the two sleeves and she didn't know where they were supposed to go. And I'm thinking....uhhh, this is the air force...surely there is a specific way these are supposed to be put on there! :D But thanks to the help from a friend who used to be in the air force, I was able to find out where to sew them on. :) So they are in exactly the right spot, and now she is down in Florida apparently about to get blown away by a tropical storm. :/

And now I think I will go try to finish that skirt. And get ready to enjoy my week because I'm only working on Tuesday this week!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

What were you doing 30 minutes ago? Eating supper. And it was very yummy. :)

Last restaurant you went to? A seafood place up in Rural Hall. Coronet something or other...

Did you have an exciting last weekend? Last weekend? Hmm...I think it was kind of busy, but not terribly exciting.

Have you ever crawled through a window? Yup.

Where were you at 1AM Sunday morning? In my bed sound asleep, I believe.

Last person you texted? My mom.

Do you like yourself? No. I hate myself, I'm going to go listen to emo music and cry. No, I'm okay. lol What a weird question.

Have you ever dyed your hair? Yep! Red! It looked funny though.

Are you wearing a necklace? No. I own dozens of necklaces and hardly ever wear them. I should start wearing them I guess....but not to work, because the baby would pull on them. Ack.

Is there anything in your past that you'd like to try again? What? And do differently? Probably not. Something I'd just like to experience again? Anything really exciting that caused an adrenaline rush would be fun to do again.

How's your heart lately? Still beating I think....though I really can't feel it at the moment. Odd. My hands must be numb or something. But I'm still breathing. :D

What is your relationship status? Hehehe..... Sorry, not sure why that made me laugh. Single.

Look behind you, what do you see? My bedroom wall with a Chinese Checkers board hanging on it.

How many rooms does your house have? 7 or 8.

Have you ever worked in a food place? Nope, and I wouldn't want to!

Who and where was the last concert you went to? Well...like, a holiday concert? Or a *real* concert? *whispers*....Clay Aiken. 6 years ago at the coliseum here in Winston.

Any summer plans for 2009? Isn't the summer almost over? No. I think we are actually going to go see my cousins for Thanksgiving though!!!

What did you eat for lunch today? Lunch...eep....trail mix and a piece of coconut cream pie! :/ I ate breakfast late.

What's on your schedule for tomorrow? Church, potluck, and then watching "Fireproof" with my friends.

The last song you heard? I....hmm. I have no clue. Last song going through my head:

That guy's songs are pretty cool, by the way.

How do you feel about abortions? Feel? Hate.

How often do you drive? Usually at least once a week.

Do you know anyone that is currently locked up? I don't think so...

Do you think you are humble? Yeah, see, this is one of those questions...."Yeah! I'm humble! So very, very humble!!...oh wait..." Um, I could be more humble.

Last time you ate a homegrown tomato? Tuesday! In a BLT. Yum!!!

Ever ordered from an infomercial? Oh yeah, see, I've got this Shamwow (it's great for washing the cats), and these hair clips? $19.99 for three! And this slicing, dicing, chopping thing...it will even slice the Shamwow! No, of course I haven't ordered anything from infomercials. :D

Have you ever requested a song on the radio? Nope.

Do you hate the last girl you were talking to? I don't remember the last girl I was talking to...but if I talked to her then I don't hate her.

When is the last time you took a nap? This afternoon. Unintentionally. I lay down for a moment and fell asleep.

Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? Hmm...probably the guy from the Civitas institute who was calling to make sure Dad got some flier about something. They're very thorough over there, I must say.

What were you doing at 8:00 this morning? Well, about a half hour after eight I was swallowing sinus medicine and Tylenol to deal with the awful stabbing pain over my right eye.

Do you chew on your straws? Very rarely.

Who was the last person you rode in the car with that was under 21? Last person who was driving? Or riding with me in my car? Caryn or Tiffany then.

Do you have curly hair? Occasionally and slightly. If it wants to curl.

Is there anyone who doesn't like you because of something you didn't do? That took some re-reading....hmm. Not that I know of, but there could be.

Where did you go today? Nowhere. Outside briefly.

Are you a heavy sleeper? 90% of the time, yes...very heavy sleeper.

When was the last time you hand washed the dishes? All of them? We have a snazzy Bosch dishwasher to do that. Otherwise...I washed some pans last night probably.

Who were the last people you ate with? My family.

Do you have college plans? Yes, no, maybe...not really. I don't know. Not four year college plans anyway. And anything else would have to fit around my work schedule, which seems to have expanded......

Are you mad at anyone right now? No, I don't think so.

What is your favorite flavor of jelly? Apple butter. I'm not a big jelly fan....strawberry, I guess.

Tell me the last dream you remember having. I had three crazy dreams in one night last week, but I don't remember them now!

Did you meet anybody new today? Nope.

Do you say aim or a-i-m? I don't.

When was the last time you talked on aim? Well, chat on Facebook is the only one I use....and I haven't talked to anyone for a while. So I don't know.

Would you dance to the taco song? The what?

Have you ever counted to 1,000? I don't know....if I did I don't remember.

Have you ever been in a castle? No, but it would be fun!

Do you have a cell-phone? Yep.

Can you use chop sticks? If I'm allowed to use them like skewers, yes, I could manage them. :)

Ever have cream puffs? Yes.

Ever walked into a wall? Uh-huh. :/ I've hit my shoulders on walls a lot, and I've skated into a wall.

Are you sarcastic? Hehe. :)

Where was your profile picture taken at? What is my profile picture right now? Oh....at my friends' house, lying on the couch.

Do you hate or dislike more than 3 people? I'm not sure that I *hate* anybody. Possibly. I do dislike more than three people though.

What is your favorite animal? Uhhh...how about cats?

Can you hula hoop? Last time I tried (years ago!) I couldn't at all! I might be able to now though...I don't know. Haven't tried and I don't have a hula hoop, so I'll have to get back to you about that.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

I heard Eva Cassidy's music first when the figure skater Michelle Kwan skated to Eva's version of Sting's "Fields of Gold".

After hearing that, I bought a couple of Eva Cassidy's CDs, and found this song as well:

But then, there's also a version of "People Get Ready" sung by Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck. And it's completely different...in fact, it looks like they can tell it's just not working and is coming out cheesy. :D People get ready...for...eighties hair!

Friday, August 07, 2009

So, I had a full day yesterday: shopping to do, an eye doctor appointment, and then getting together with a couple of my friends before they leave.

Among other places, I went to Goodwill...and found this napkin holder. It makes me laugh, though I'm not sure why. :)

I also bought some more jeans because I've got way too many pairs with holes in them. And once again, I discovered that only expensive jeans fit me really well. Of the three I got, the pair that fit me best are Calvin Klein brand. :/ Sheesh...good thing there's Goodwill I guess, because I wouldn't want to pay full price for those or any other expensive brand.

Then I looked several places for Dad's birthday gift, and finally gave up and ordered it from Amazon. It's supposed to be here by the 11th or 12th; hopefully it will be!

Oh, and I went to Petsmart and didn't get a little orange and white kitty named Charlie, though I was very tempted to. We really don't need more cats (two is plenty!), but it would be nice to have a boy cat again, they're so much more affectionate. I did buy our cats some more cat food though. :) ooh, heya!!! I was actually able to get the picture off my phone by emailing it to myself!

Then last night after I got back from the eye doctor and picking Dad up, a couple friends and I went out for supper and to see a movie, so that was fun.

By the way, does anyone have a good soft chocolate chip cookie recipe? I want to make soft chocolate chip cookies (as close as I can get to the ones from Costco, if possible) but I can't seem to get any that come out soft. I finally got some that look alright anyway. Our standard recipe is the Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe, but those always come out looking awful when I make them. They taste perfectly fine, but they're all wrinkled. Weird. Anyway, the ones I made last week came out nicely, but still not soft.

I know the kind from Costco probably have some sort of ingredient that makes them soft (I'm trying to remember what was in them that sounded like it was probably what made the difference...I can't remember). All the other ingredients are normal things though, so maybe I should look at the label on a package when we go there tonight, and write down the ingredients.

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

On Facebook you can click "like" on someone's status, or comment, or note, or picture. Just about anything. It's nice in some situations where you want to show that you appreciate whatever it is without saying "Haha!", "Cool!", or "Wow!" again...or whatever other one word would fit the situation...unless it really requires that...sometimes it does. The other alternative being to not say anything at all and simply enjoy it and laugh to yourself. But what's the point in that? Shouldn't someone know that you like what they wrote?

But on a blog? Someone took the time to write a whole post. There's a place to comment. Do we have to cut out that form of interaction? It's part of the fun of blogging, to actually hear what people think about what you wrote, and what they have to add to it. I don't even mind a "Haha, that's funny!" comment. It's still a comment, it's multiple words. But now there's this: http://buzz.blogger.com/2008/11/reactions-easily-engage-your-readers.html

"With Reactions, readers can easily respond with one click, increasing feedback on posts."

Okay...so you might get more feedback. (Anonymous though...) But I like real comments. I don't mind "like" on Facebook, but I don't want it invading my blog. And it's not going to, because I'm not going to add it. :D

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Because the weddings ideas post seems to have gone over amazingly well. :D No snarky comments from relatives even...I'm shocked. ;)

I saw this article the day after I wrote the last post, which reminded me of one other wedding apparel expense. Bridemaids' dresses and whatever the groom and groomsmen are going to wear...and does it have to be tuxes? Well, for the groom, I mean. Sure, if my future husband wants to wear a tux, I'd be fine with it, but it seems a little unnecessary. I would think most guys would be perfectly happy to just wear a regular suit, right?

Bridesmaids dresses...hmm. Not sure about that one. A lot of it would depend on who I picked for bridesmaids probably. In general though, I wouldn't expect them to have to have identical dresses, just the same color perhaps? Which might be just as difficult...unless I went with black. In which case I would shock both my grandmothers, and possibly my parents.

As far as whether you should spend a lot (or a decent amount) on a wedding because it's only one day, or not spend much on it because it's only one day, I think there's a balance somewhere in the middle. Yes, it is a very special day, and you want it to be nice, and memorable, and you want it to not just be thrown together and coming across simply as a means to an end that unfortunately has to involve fluffy dresses and cake. :) On the other hand, I'm not big on flashy stuff, or all the little fiddly things that have to accessorize a wedding. Nor should it be such a big deal that it stresses everyone involved and overshadows the fact that you're getting married. You don't want people to come see your "wedding" you want them to see you get married. So yeah, somewhere in the middle there. A simple wedding, with meaning behind it, after all weddings are symbolic.

I'm happily pleased to see that I'm not the only girl who has her wedding dress already too. :D Or, at least a possible dress, leaving open the possibility of changing our minds. I wish I could remember how much I paid for mine, but I bought it, oh...probably about four years ago. Since that was before I started working, I doubt I would have paid much for it. Somewhere between $30 and $50 maybe. It's a vintage Gunne Sax brand dress (70's maybe?), ivory/cream lace, and I just found the same one online on some vintage clothing website that sold for $150. I know I didn't pay that much! No, it's not white, but I don't really feel like wedding dresses have to be white...and I look equally pale and washed out in cream or white, so it's a no-win situation. :) Although if it was a spring or summer wedding...I might want white...and short sleeves...hmm. I guess I can hope fall would work out...I like fall best anyway.I was looking at some of the modest wedding dress sites and I really didn't find a whole lot that I liked better. And they were all expensive! Most wedding dresses are too frilly. Yes, I know, they're supposed to be. But I'm not a really frilly sort of girl. Feminine clothes, yes; frilly, no. And no, lace isn't always frilly.

And I know where it would be neat to have the wedding, provided there weren't too many people to squish in...but if there were I'm sure there are lots of pretty churches around here. Moravian churches usually look nice. Outdoors, like Jessica said, sounds kinda nice, but fraught with peril as well. :D Rain, heat, cold...I like the outdoors, but not so much when I'm dressed up. lol

Anyway, just a few other thoughts I had...and it made me realize that a lot of this stuff would have to be rethought and possibly revised when the time comes. I try to be accommodating...I wouldn't want to have a whole list of totally inflexible plans that I shoved on everybody. Hmm, in general I'm flexible about things, I guess. I have ideas, but they can change...and if it's an opinion or idea that won't change for whatever reason (plain stubbornness or belief) you'll know. :)Which reminds me of something else I was thinking of the other day (and I can't remember if I've said this before, it's sounds vaguely familiar) but I think we woman (or I at least) tend to change our opinion more often than men because we state our opinion more quickly. Or our first opinion anyway. Then after more thinking about it, we may change our minds, and state a differing opinion. On the other hand...guys are fairly quiet until they have their opinion set and then they state it (if they see fit), as opposed to going off on a tangent about something and then changing their mind the next day. So by the time they've stated their opinion it's firmly fixed as their opinion....at which point they will loudly give it to you. Or quietly, depending on the guy. And I have experience with both among my family... And I'm sure this doesn't hold true for all men, or all women, but it seems like in general that's how it works. (I'm thinking I said this to someone, or on here before...hopefully to someone, so I'm only repeating myself once.)

Sunday, August 02, 2009

But not guides for "going green". And no, I'm not getting married, that wasn't an announcement. But I have ideas.

Oh...actually, this isn't green, this is black and red. I got a new cell phone, in fact, we all three got new cell phones, and since they are all exactly the same, we ordered the ones that came with a free skinit.com decal/skin thingy. I finally picked mine out, and this is what I decided on. It's perhaps a bit loud, but I really was having a hard time picking one and I like black and red. I'll get used to it. I didn't really want a pink phone last time, but I got used to having it.

This is green! Green tissue paper I salvaged from one of Colin's birthday presents. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but it's green...surely I can find something to use it for! :)

More green. There aren't as many nice green dishes and kitchen utensils available as there used to be; a lot of things are avocado green now, which is not the green I like. But I found these cutting boards at Costco and the casserole dish at Homegoods.

The Girl's Guide is very good...a lot of it is articles that I've seen before on Boundless, but I think there is extra material as well. (I haven't read the guy's guide yet, and yes, girls can read it too. :D But like the girls guide, I recognize a lot of articles that I've read on the blog.) I recommend the two guides, though the name makes me laugh. I've read so many old novels that the phrase "marrying well" immediately makes me think of marrying a rich man or woman. :) Which, I assure you, is NOT what the guides are advising. ;) Well, there is stuff about guys being able to provide for a family, but that's not quite the same.

This reminds me of a discussion we had the other night while my grandparents were over here for Colin's birthday. We got started talking about wedding cakes, and dresses, and how much all that stuff costs if you get whatever is trendy to get. (Poor Colin...he finally interrupted with "Isn't this cake good?!!")

Apparently the average wedding cost in the US is $20,ooo-something. $20,000??!!! Insanity. And really unnecessary. I guess we got started talking about this because we were talking about the cake from Costco. You can order a sheet cake, (or half-size sheet cake, whatever that was that we got Colin) for $17. And you can get it with ivory icing with roses on it and everything. I really think that's what I'll do when I get married, unless there's some reason I feel I need to get a traditional wedding cake. But I think it would be a lot more convenient to have flat cakes like that (easier to cut for one thing), and SO much cheaper. Wedding cakes cost outrageous amounts, and these Costco cakes taste as good, or better than most wedding cakes.

So there's really no reason for cake to be expensive. Catering? Meh. I don't think I've tasted any catered food yet that I was really impressed with. Depends on your situation perhaps, but in our church, the ladies would probably be willing to help make food. And once again, it would taste better.

Even if you did end up paying to have various things done for you, there are just so many unnecessary and overpriced elements of the "standard" wedding. One of my second-cousins got married recently, and I'm not sure what all she did for her wedding, but I know she was planning on it being very frugal.

Wedding dress? Well, I've heard of women getting them while they're on sale for $100 or something, which is fairly reasonable. But I've also heard the other end of the scale...expensive designer dresses and another expensive dress for the reception. A wedding dress could be sewn at home, if you have the skills for that (sounds like a bit of nightmare to me actually, even though I do sew...all that fabric.) :D But it could be done, or you could buy a dress on eBay, or some other place if you want a vintage dress, or don't mind a modern but used dress.

Anyway, rant and wedding ideas over. Obviously, I don't want what counts as a typical wedding these days. I might end up conceding some things depending on what my future in-laws expect, but I kinda doubt it. :p I don't care if my relatives are shocked by things not being traditional, and chances are I'll marry someone equally...I'm blanking on an adjective...the only thing I'm coming up with is anarchistic. Heh.

Crazy gyroscopic top...it lights up and looks like a flying saucer. It's rather mesmerising:

Some sort of water-shooting thing. It's basically a big syringe.

Colin, looking rather like the panda from "Kung Fu Panda":

Anyway, that was fun! :) Dad and I got home from work last night to find Colin bouncing off the walls with excitement. He wouldn't stop talking, and he was planning where everyone was going to sit, and when Mom said she was going to go change clothes he started telling her what she should wear. I think he was just a little happy about his birthday. ;)

After opening presents and having cake, Colin finally calmed down...at which point the chocolate, sugar, and caffeine I had consumed kicked in and I was the one who was hyper and didn't get to bed until about one in the morning. :D